


Ashtray Wasp

by tyroneslothrop



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Angst, Christ this is depressing, M/M, Teacher-Student Relationship, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 06:02:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9165289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyroneslothrop/pseuds/tyroneslothrop
Summary: Every night, at 7PM, a wasp visits Dan's writing room. Sometimes, the wasp comes with memories.





	

                Some nights, at 7PM, a wasp would visit Daniel’s writing desk. It would take a psychical itinerary of the items surrounding it. First, it would buzz around the rim of Dan’s whiskey. Then it’d jolt over to the ashtray, smoke still exuding from it (Dan always timed his cigarettes). Then it’d float over his writing supplies – the paper, pencils, ink, and erasers - before it’d finally settle on his lamp. It’d flap to its hearts content there. Then, abruptly, it’d leave out the window. It usually stayed until 8. Sometimes it’d stay until 10. One time, when Dan was spending a drunken, lonely night with himself, it stayed until 1AM. Dan remembers that night fondly.

                Dan likes to think it’s the same wasp, a wasp who has fell into habit. Maybe they’re different, and they’re all members of the same family. On particularly uncreative nights, Dan would nibble on his pen and come up with stories about this wasp family. They had a whole folklore and history to their name now.

                Sometimes, the drone of the wasp would bring him back memories.

                It was typical mundane stuff. The taste of his grandmother’s pastries, playing in the swing park with his friends, his father giving him piggybacks… nothing too interesting. Nothing that’d actually inspire him.

                But they were pleasant though.

                *

                Tonight, the wasp came in. 7PM sharp. It circled over the whiskey, seeming to recoil slightly from the repugnant spell. But this time, it skipped the ashtray. It skipped the writing supplies too. Jittering, it made its way to Dan’s lamp. It appeared to contemplate it for a moment. Then it perched on the rim of it.

                _Buzz, buzz, buzz…_

                Dan kneels over, staring hard at his paper. Blank.

                _Buzz, buzz, buzz…_

                Dan can see an outline, the periphery of a human figure.

                _Buzz, buzz, buzz…_

                And he tries to block it out.

                *

                Blocking it out doesn’t stop it.

                In his dreams, the figure visits.

                There’s that outline again. A faint amber glow.

                A male figure – judging by the shape of the hips. And hair. And the amber glow’s reaching towards him… is he sticking out his hand?

                Everything’s coming into focus. It’s one of those dreams. He knows he’s dreaming. He can feel the blanket sticking to his leg, the teddy bear pressed to his side. But there’s still that faint blur to it all, the thing that makes him question reality for a few seconds when he wakes up.

                The hand. He can make it out. The sleeve of the shirt. The knuckles, red rimmed, rough with age, the fingernails bitten to shreds.

                And…

                No.

                “Hi, Daniel.”

                He’s disgusted with himself. The way his imagination has managed to assemble the exact intonation of his voice - the tremors, the articulation, the excitable way he’d always put pressure on the last syllable. Dan- _ieeel._

His hand touches his, and.

                He wakes up, sheets stuck to his body.

                *

                For the first time in years, Dan hasn’t went to the writing room. He’s cooped up in the basement, trembling, whiskey bottle in hand. He thinks he’s chain-smoked an entire 20 pack of cigs, but he can’t remember.

                Dan feels nothing but a numb aversion to himself. All these years, and his subconscious can still piece his voice together like that. He’s afraid to sleep. But he knows drinking won’t help much with that. It’s nearly 7 o’clock, and he can already feel his eyelids drooping.

                He’s been gazing at the same corner in the ceiling for hours now, listening to the dull chime of his wristwatch. There’s a spider there, slowly making a web. He tries to force his eyes to co-operate, to focus on the weaving. It’s all so systematic, the way a spider makes its home. He could go up to it right now, break the web apart, and the spider would go right back to repairing it. Daniel feels sick with envy. They never stop to think.

                There’s a grand clock above the basement. He feels it rumble and clear out it’s bowels before he hears the chime. The house is so vast. It seems to echo within every empty place there is. It might just be the dry pulse of the house itself, decaying, losing life with every cry it makes.

                The silence rings out louder than the bell.

                There’s a blur.

                Then, faintly.

_Buzz, buzz, buzz…_

                He huddles under the covers.

                “Please…”

                _Buzz, buzz, buzz…_

                This time, he doesn’t even need to sleep.

                Maybe it’s the alcohol.

                The figure stays there, dormant. The hand is already outstretched. Maybe he’s already made the obligatory introduction and Daniel didn’t hear it.

                The hand comes into view again, aged, sinews and veins thick like tree roots. It seems a bit more relaxed this time, the knuckles a lesser shade of red than before. Looking up… he’s still wearing those silly shirts. Maroon, with a barely matching tie. The buttons are poorly done up. The tie’s a bit loose at the collar. His eyes make their way up from the collar, to the neck, to the jawbone.

                He’s staring Mr. Lester dead in the eyes.

                Dan hates himself.         

                His body kicks involuntarily, and Dan’s awake again. He focuses his eyes. The spider web. It’s gone. Did he imagine it? The corners of the basement are blank.

                Damp eyed, flightless, he makes his way to bed. He’s too drained to dream.

                *

                He doesn’t know why he still refers to him as Mr. Lester. He knew his name. Phil. He had an inkling that it might’ve been short for Phillip, but he’s not sure.

                He’s still shaken up. He’s dealing with a slight hangover. He downed the half bottle of whiskey after last night’s vision. Or at least that’s what the empty bottle next to his bed suggests.

                He’s in the writing room, lain on the sofa. He’s wrote today – that’s a plus – a tiny short story, and a woe-is-me diary entry. It’s better than nothing.

                He dozes off before 7 o’clock, and when he wakes up it’s pitch black. There’s nothing, apart from a vague memory kicking in his head. Something about blue eyes. And a car.

                *

                It’s been a fairly normal day. Work’s done, car’s filled up with gas, bills are paid. Dan even managed to bang out a fairly decent short story. It’s a bit fuzzy around the edges, but he can always refine it. He hasn’t sat down and wrote properly for a while, and his publishers are asking for him.

                He ignores them. The telephone ringing melts into the fabric of the house, the letters are trodden into the doormat.

                *

                The scenery outside all blends together. The houses appear to be a singular entity, stretched out across the whole plane. Looming, hungry.

                He said they were going to the corner store. It’s been 10 minutes. The outside has lost its familiar, and dusk seemed to be setting in.

                Sometimes, if the light hit Mr. Lester right, you could see the faint idea of grey hairs in his scalp. The sun, halved against the horizon, whitened him, and the grey hairs sat like a halo around his bald spot. In fact, there was something withering about his eyelashes too. And the hairs around his knuckles, gripping harshly onto the steering wheel.

                There was something deteriorating about his eyes, as well. A radiant azure, slowly softening with each passing day. He could picture him easily in the blossom of youth, eyes sparkling, sunlight falling on him, illuminating each angle and contour of his face.

                But would Mr. Lester in his youth, Mr. Lester the same age as Daniel, have half the charm of the man parallel to him now? He wouldn’t have those laughter lines placed so delicately upon his temples. There would be none of the wisdom, the feeling, the tenderness that Dan knew was in his heart. He wouldn’t have the sobriety and the reasoning that comes with age. If he’d met Lester at 18, he’d have walked right past him.

                Dan looks away. The outside, instead of the whirring mess it once was, now stood still. The car wasn’t moving. They were sat motionless outside of the corner store. His hands were still grasping the steering wheel, knuckles now white with exertion.

                How long did they sit there? Minutes, hours, maybe even years. But the world was static, and no-one came looking for them.

                It was in these moments – and there were many of them – where Dan felt that wall between them. The faux-geniality of a professional relationship. All those times where he was forced to disregard every look of jealousy and possessiveness that Mr. Lester shot him. Because he was a figure of authority. Of course he didn’t feel the same back. He wasn’t stupid and naive like Daniel was.

                But where were they now? Dan looks around him. They’re in a car. They’re in the parking lot of a corner store. And what was school to them now? School, which was 1, maybe 10 miles away. What desire was there to maintain a professional relationship when there was no-one else around?

                Dan darts a look at him. And it shatters the other man’s veneer. His face droops, his hands loosen and his eyes fall to his feet below.

                “Daniel…”

                Dan says nothing. The silence becomes palpable.

                “Daniel, I can’t.” His voice is empty and broken, and Dan’s never heard something so pathetic.

                The sun’s up again, and it feels like it’s bleeding right into Dan’s cornea. He kicks his leg involuntarily. He’s not in a car at all – he’s passed out on the floor.

                *

                Dan never writes again. He’s disconnected the telephone, and he trips over the letters near daily.

                Sometimes he lays in bed staring at the light bulb, and he wonders where Phil is now. In 20 years’ time, he won’t have to wonder that anymore. He’ll be reunited with the earth, and Dan will be nearing his forties.

                The wasp visits irregularly. One week, it doesn’t come at all. Then the week turns to a month, a month to a year. And so it goes. Forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah.
> 
> Thanks for reading, troops.


End file.
